More female faces now grace walls long dominated by men

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery has tripled the number of female faces on its walls, as part of the 21st-century overhaul of a building that has largely been home to images of men.

A string of new exhibitions at the gallery – some to be in place for years, others a few months – includes Out of the Shadow: Women of 19th Century Scotland. The exhibition features women ranging from Charlotte Nasmyth, daughter of the painter Alexander Nasmyth, to the mathematician Mary Somerville.

“The women on the walls are the people who actually made it,” said the gallery’s director, James Holloway. “It shows how restricted opportunities were for women in the 19th century.”

Throughout the gallery there are now 152 portraits of women on the walls. In Playing for Scotland: The Making of Modern Sport, a hanging banner celebrates a First World War women’s football match when Scottish shipyard workers played English factory workers.

A new exhibition on migration stories prominently features leading Pakistani immigrant women and their families. And the cover of the gallery’s new guide features a portrait of the 16th-century calligrapher Esther Inglis.

“We’ve got a lot of women back in,” said Mr Holloway. “It shows a 21st-century sensibility.”

The gallery’s newly styled exhibitions include works that have not been seen for decades, such as Allan Ramsay’s floor-to-ceiling portraits of George III and his wife Queen Charlotte.